leather lovers will be pleased

with plenty of leather hot pics on restoring sex blog

white socks and white underwear for the winners

running nude in the desert to save your visa card

love engraved with sand hearts

axe gay effect 6

Gay men risk of HIV 'still high'

Gay men are being urged to get HIV tests more regularly and practise safe sex in a bid to halt the high numbers of new cases in the UK.

The Health Protection Agency made the warning after new diagnoses among gay men topped 2,600 for the third year.

But the figures do seem to have begun to plateau after a surge at the turn of the century.

Overall, the number of new cases hit an estimated 6,840 in 2007 - a fall of 1,400 from the previous year.


Gay men continue to be the group most at risk of acquiring HIV within the UK
Dr Valerie Delpech

The HPA said this was mostly due to a decline in cases among those infected heterosexually in Africa.

But experts said the new cases among gay men was still at worrying levels.

There were 2,630 diagnoses - a slight fall on previous years, but much higher than the annual figures in the 1990s which tended to hover around 1,500.

HPA head of HIV surveillance Dr Valerie Delpech said: "Gay men continue to be the group most at risk of acquiring HIV within the UK.

"We need to reinforce the safe sex message for gay men that the best way to protect yourself from contracting HIV is practising safe sex by using a condom with all new and casual partners."

She also urged more regular testing so treatment could be started earlier and to reduce the risk of transmission to partners.

The figures are only provisional as they also take into account the expected delays in diagnosis.

The Department of Health has announced a review of national HIV prevention programmes.

Genevieve Clark, of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said it was "good news" that the figures for gay men seemed to be levelling off.

But she warned the number of cases was still too high and called for easier access to testing as some places had long waits for access to sexual health clinics.

Deborah Jack, of the National AIDS Trust, said: "It is a concern that HIV diagnoses are still increasing among gay men and heterosexuals infected in the UK.

"Alongside improved prevention we urgently need better HIV testing strategies.

"HIV is often not picked up early enough by health professionals and late diagnoses increase the liklihood of HIV being passed on, as well as greatly reducing the health prospects of people living with HIV."

A Department of Health spokesman said money had been invested in recent years to improve waiting times.


from here

RESULTS OF THE BEST LOVE VALENTINE POST

For 2007 they have chosen the best love post they have written for valentine. For your eyes only.
then they have voted for the bests of the bests.

The winners are:

1. Gym fanatic



2. Omoeros


3. Aussielicious





4. Fantastic Mag


5. Body Whisperer



6. Gay Kiss Paradise


7. 711 Rain STreet


8.Morphosis


9.Gay Extravaganza


10. Gay Twogether


All the best gay love posts for valentine on the Best Gay Bloggers

did you have your breakfast in the snow in underwear

Speedos and half nude guys in the snow

viewed on speedojunkies

snowing day today

underwear strip tease in the snow

nude in the snow in longjohns

not even cold in underwear in the snow

Behind the scenes of Rufskin underwear models

Advices for Leather beginners

David Menkes knows a thing or two about leather. He’d better, after running his own custom leather studio for 30 years making fetish gear for private clients (including countless leather title holders). For you label whores, he’s even made leather designs for Sean John and Philip Lim. In preparation for the big night at the Roseland, we talked to Menkes about how to buy, maintain and store your prized possessions after the party has wrapped.

1. Go for the Strong, Silent Type.
As far as leather goes, listen for a soft sound when you handle it, not a crinkly sound; that means it’s a cheap leather. Straps should be soft at the edges, handleable [and] not sharp. Try to look for things that are heavy duty and will last longer. You want to find something that isn’t made in too many pieces. I like a bare style. I think it should show the lines of the body.

2. Give and Take.
Leather will stretch at the seat and the knees and generally about 10 percent, depending on the weight of the leather, but that’s over a period of time. It takes about 3 months of wearing it. On pants and chaps, the waistband won’t stretch. Pants should fit you nice in the waist and be tight all over, at first. That will also encourage you to go to the gym and look better in your leather.

3. Treat It Right.
Oil it with conditioner, not cleaner. Don’t use saddle soap on clothes. If it’s dirty, wipe it down with a moist cloth. If it’s more than surface dirt, use the foam from a bar of Ivory soap, but not the bar itself. Keep them supple but not wet, and over time they will perform beautifully. Things can be altered over time if your body changes. As long as you keep it supple, it will last a lifetime.

4. Use it, don’t abuse it.
Store leather away from heat. It’s best in a drawer or put it in the coolest part of your closet and hang it on a hanger or with clips. Don’t let it hang there forever. Don’t take it out just once a year, you want to take it out and use it. At least shake it out and lay it flat every so often.

5. If It Feels Good, Do It.
You want to look for things that appeal to you. Don’t buy things on a whim. Go for something you feel comfortable with, not what your friends tell you looks good or doesn’t. It’s all about fantasy, and you’ll look better and more confident if it’s something that makes you feel great.

viewed here

Pregnant man exists

Thomas Beattie lives in Oregon and is married to a woman named Nancy. He's pregnant.

To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Arthur Charles Clarke was gay?

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, Sri Lankabhimanya (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British (lived in Sri Lanka since 1956) science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which led also to the film of the same name; and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World.

Clarke served in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor and technician from 1941-1946, proposed satellite communication systems in 1945 which won him the Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Gold Medal in 1963 and a nomination in 1994 for a Nobel Prize, and became the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1947-1950 and again in 1953. Later, he helped fight for the preservation of lowland gorillas and won the UNESCO-Kalinga Prize in 1962.

Clarke was knighted in 1998. He emigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956, where he lived until his death.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Clarke's first venture into film was the Stanley Kubrick-directed 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick and Clarke had met in 1964 to discuss the possibility of a collaborative film project. As the idea developed, it was decided that the story for the film was to be loosely based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition. Originally, Clarke was going to write the screenplay for the film, but this proved to be more tedious than he had estimated. Instead, Kubrick and Clarke decided it would be best to write a novel first and then adapt it for the film upon its completion. However, as Clarke was finishing the book, the screenplay was also being written simultaneously.

Clarke's influence on the directing of 2001: A Space Odyssey is also felt in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie when astronaut Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one. As this happens, we witness HAL's consciousness degrading. By the time HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song Daisy Bell. This song was chosen based on a visit by Clarke to his friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility. A speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr was taking place. Kelly was using an IBM 704 computer to synthesise speech. His voice recorder synthesiser vocoder reproduced the vocal for Daisy Bell, with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews. Arthur C. Clarke was so impressed that he later told Kubrick to use it in this climactic scene.

Due to the hectic schedule of the film's production, Kubrick and Clarke had difficulty collaborating on the book. Clarke completed a draft of the novel at the end of 1964 with the plan to publish in 1965 in advance of the film's release in 1966. After many delays the film was released in the spring of 1968, before the book was completed. The book was credited to Clarke alone. Clarke later complained that this had the effect of making the book into a novelisation, that Kubrick had manipulated circumstances to downplay Clarke's authorship. For these and other reasons, the details of the story differ slightly from the book to the movie. The film is a bold artistic piece with little explanation for the events taking place. Clarke, on the other hand, wrote thorough explanations of "cause and effect" for the events in the novel. Despite their differences, both film and novel were well received.

In 1972, Clarke published The Lost Worlds of 2001, which included his account of the production and alternate versions of key scenes. The "special edition" of the novel A Space Odyssey (released in 1999) contains an introduction by Clarke, documenting his account of the events leading to the release of the novel and film.

The Eiffel Tower as you never saw it before

The architect David Serero french imagined an extension of the Eiffel Tower on its summit. Visitors promèneraient on a platform attached to the 3rd floor of the monument. The case made loud noise and the world press has seized. For the operating company of the Tour, it is a hoax. It ensures that he never ordered the project. But the architect is formal: his idea is feasible.

The platform created by David Serero would be installed temporarily at the 3rd floor of the Eiffel Tower in 2009 to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the famous building

With this extension, people could walk 1700 per hour, on top of the Tour. They have a 360 ° views over the rooftops of Paris

David Serero, who dreamed this project is a french architect. For him, this extension is not a hoax, but is quite achievable. His development proposal was unveiled in mid-March 2008

This platform will be built around the tower, as a collar. Visitors emprunteraient, from the 3rd floor, 4 of stairs to enter it.

interesting questions about HIV

A good friend of mine works as a doctor in the area of sexual health in the UK. He was kind enough to answer some questions on misconceptions and thoughts about HIV for me.

Clinics are now saying 6 weeks is the length of time after infection that a positive result will show up. Can it take longer?
The traditional ‘window period’ for testing after a specific risk is 12 weeks. However a large number of people who contract HIV have developed antibodies by 6-10 weeks. This has been known for ages. The test that we are discussing is the antibody test,however a viral load test can be positive within a week of the virus infecting someone.
The advice is the same as it always has been
1. HIV test but wait 12 weeks after the risk
2. Occasionally if someone is very anxious can do the HIV antibody test after 6-10 weeks as long as they know to come back at 12 weeks for a repeat test if the first test is negative
3. If someone is having a seroconversion illness we do a Viral load test which is different to the hiv antibody test and not done routinely.

I’ve been told that you will know when you are sero-converting by one person and by another that he didn’t have any idea. Does it affect different people differently?
Studies suggest seroconversion illness occurs in approx 20-30% of patients but the symptoms are very non specific and easily mistaken for a flu/sore throat/diarrhoea ie very common symptoms…which is the problem ,at their most infectious ,most people dont recognise or know they have HIV.

What is your opinion on the theory that there are people who are “immune” to HIV? I do occasionally see people who are having huge risk or long tem partners of known hiv infected partners who never got the infection themselves.

People are living longer and healthier without medication these days. Why do you think that is?
Hmmmmmm not sure we can make a general statement like that….people in Africa may not agree! Patients may be getting tested earlier and so,appear to live longer post diagnosis. In the early days of the epidemic,people were diagnosing in very late stage (AIDS) disease and die shortly after.

How many different strains of HIV would you estimate there might be out there now?
Apart from HIV 1 and HIV 2 , HIV 1 is subclassified into subtypes or clades,the list of wich is growing as different clades recombine and produce what we call recombinants. At the moment approx clades A-G exist plus an endless list of recombinant clades wich have not been classified as yet.

People still think it’s nearly impossible to catch HIV being the “top”. Do you have any statistics on infection rates for the varying sexual roles?
Check the following resource from http://www.bashh.org/guidelines.asp and click the second link under HIV to download a pdf.

go to table 2

Table 2 The risk of HIV transmission following an exposure from a
known HIV-positive individual
Type of exposure
Estimated risk of HIV
transmission per exposure (%)
Blood transfusion (one unit) 90–100
Receptive anal intercourse 0.1–3.0
Receptive vaginal intercourse 0.1–0.27
Insertive vaginal intercourse 0.03–0.09
Insertive anal intercourse 0.06
Receptive oral sex (fellatio) 0–0.04
Needle–stick injury 0.3 (95 CI 0.2–0.5)
Sharing injecting equipment 0.67
Mucous membrane exposure 0.09 (95 CI 0.006–0.5)

Is there any data on the percentage of the gay population currently living with HIV? Seroprevalence in london suggests 15-20% of all gay men london are positive. Not too sure in sydney…check the ASHM website

from aussielicious blog written by my friend Brenton

Barack Obama interview

Barack Obama is offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades. But will voters buy it?

When Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met in California for the Jan. 31 debate, their back-and-forth resembled their many previous encounters, with the Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambling for the small policy yardage between them. And then Obama said something about the Iraq War that wasn't incremental at all. "I don't want to just end the war," he said, "but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."

Until this point in the primaries, Clinton and Obama had sounded very similar on this issue. Despite their differences in the past (Obama opposed the war, while Clinton voted for it), both were calling for major troop withdrawals, with some residual force left behind to hedge against catastrophe. But Obama's concise declaration of intent at the debate upended this assumption. Clinton stumbled to find a counterargument, eventually saying her vote in October 2002 "was not authority for a pre-emptive war." Then she questioned Obama's ability to lead, saying that the Democratic nominee must have "the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander in chief."

If Clinton's response on Iraq sounds familiar, that's because it's structurally identical to the defensive crouch John Kerry assumed in 2004: Voting against the war wasn't a mistake; the mistakes were all George W. Bush's, and bringing the war to a responsible conclusion requires a wise man or woman with military credibility. In that debate, Obama offered an alternative path. Ending the war is only the first step. After we're out of Iraq, a corrosive mind-set will still be infecting the foreign-policy establishment and the body politic. That rot must be eliminated.

Obama is offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades. It cuts to the heart of traditional Democratic timidity. "It's time to reject the counsel that says the American people would rather have someone who is strong and wrong than someone who is weak and right," Obama said in a January speech. "It's time to say that we are the party that is going to be strong and right." (The Democrat who counseled that Americans wanted someone strong and wrong, not weak and right? That was Bill Clinton in 2002.)

But to understand what Obama is proposing, it's important to ask: What, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place?

To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust, the advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election. They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither - an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.



When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises, it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of advisers. (If the press had paid better attention, the country would have seen through Bush's pitch about a humble foreign policy and realized that many of his advisers, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were conspiracy-minded warmongers.) Obama's foreign-policy advisers come from diverse backgrounds. They are former aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton administration's left flank (Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps' much-lauded counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy (Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent, and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an intemperate remark to a reporter.)

They also share a formative experience with each other and with Obama. Each opposed the Iraq War at a time when doing so was derided by their colleagues, by journalists, and by the foreign-policy establishment. Each did so because they understood that the invasion and occupation ran counter to the goal of destroying al-Qaeda. And each bore the frustration of endless lectures on their lack of so-called seriousness from those who suffered from strategic myopia.

"There is a popular notion that Democrats have to try to appear like Republicans to pass some test on national security. The fact that that's still the case after Iraq is absurd," says one of Obama's closest advisers. "So you break from that orthodoxy and say 'I don't care if the Republicans attack me because I'm willing to meet with the leadership in Iran. We haven't for 25 years, and it's not gotten us anywhere.'"

Most of the members of Obama's foreign-policy team expressed frustration that they had taken a well-considered and seemingly anodyne position on Iraq and suffered for it. Obama had something similar happen to him in the spring and summer of 2007. He was attacked from the left and the right for saying three things that should not have been controversial: that if he had actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of al-Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan but no cooperation from the Pakistani government, he would take out the jihadists; that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons on terrorist training camps; and that he would be willing to meet with leaders of rogue states in his first year as president. "No one [of Obama's critics] had thought through the policy because that was the quote-unquote naïve and weak position, so they said it was a bad position to take," recalls Ben Rhodes, the adviser who writes Obama's foreign-policy speeches. "And it was a seminal moment, because Obama himself said, 'No, I'm right about this!'"

Instead of backing down, Obama asked his foreign-policy team to double down. Rhodes wrote a speech that Obama delivered at DePaul University on Oct. 2, which criticized the boundaries of acceptable discourse set by the same establishment that backed the war. "This election is about ending the Iraq War, but even more it's about moving beyond it. And we're not going to be safe in a world of unconventional threats with the same old conventional thinking that got us into Iraq," Obama said. One of his advisers, recalling the fallout from Obama's comments about pursuing al-Qaeda in Pakistan, says, "He takes policy positions that are a break from both rigid orthodoxy and the Bush administration. And everyone says it's a gaffe! That just encapsulates everything that's wrong about the foreign-policy debate in Washington and in Democratic politics."

The Obama foreign-policy team describes it as "the politics of fear," a phrase most advisers used unprompted in our conversations. "For a long time we've not seen much creative thinking from Dems on national security, because, out of fear, we want to be a little different from the Republicans but not too different, out of fear of being labeled weak or indecisive," another top adviser says. Identifying that fear as the accelerant of the Iraq War mind-set is the first step to a new and innovative foreign policy. John Kerry was not able to argue for fundamental change in foreign policy because he was consumed by that very political fear. Obama's admonition to Democrats is much like Pope John Paul II's to the Gdansk shipyard strikers - first, be not afraid.



Like Obama, his defense advisers have supplemented their American views with the perspectives of outsiders. Gen. Scott Gration, a retired Air Force jet pilot, says hello to me over the phone in Swahili. He learned about the crushing misery of the world's poor by growing up in Congo, where his parents were missionaries. After the violence following Congolese independence in 1960, Gration had an experience few Americans ever will: He became a refugee. "We lost everything we owned, and what we took with us, they confiscated," he remembers.

Sarah Sewall, a Harvard professor and another of Obama's closest advisers, also knows about stepping outside of her comfort zone. A longtime human-rights advocate with the disarmament organization, the Council for a Livable World, Sewall found herself in 2005 and 2006 with an unlikely partner: Gen. David Petraeus. He and two colleagues were rewriting the Army and Marine field manual for counterinsurgency and wanted Sewall's input on how to create a more just, humane, and successful doctrine. For agreeing to help, she was attacked by some on the left. "Should a human-rights center at the nation's most prestigious university be collaborating with the top U.S. general in Iraq in designing the counterinsurgency doctrine behind the current military surge?" Tom Hayden wrote online in The Huffington Post.

Sewall's involvement may have lost her some influence within the academic left, but she has become a hero to the military's growing circle of counterinsurgency theorist-practitioners. "Her impact on the thinking about the war and the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been significant and not without cost," says Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the counterinsurgency community's luminaries. "She has shown, in my eyes, great moral courage. I think Senator Obama is listening to someone who has thought long and hard about the use of force and who understands the kinds of wars we're fighting today."

This ability to see the world from different perspectives informs what the Obama team hopes will replace the Iraq War mind-set: something they call dignity promotion. "I don't think anyone in the foreign-policy community has as much an appreciation of the value of dignity as Obama does," says Samantha Power, a former key aide and author of the groundbreaking study of U.S. foreign policy and genocide, A Problem From Hell. "Dignity is a way to unite a lot of different strands [of foreign-policy thinking]," she says. "If you start with that, it explains why it's not enough to spend $3 billion on refugee camps in Darfur, because the way those people are living is not the way they want to live. It's not a human way to live. It's graceless - an affront to your sense of dignity."

During Bush's second term, a strange disconnect has arisen in liberal foreign-policy circles in response to the president's so-called "freedom agenda." Some liberals, like Matthew Yglesias in his book Heads In The Sand, note the insincerity of the administration's stated goal of exporting democracy. Bush, they observe, only targets for democratization countries that challenge American hegemony. Other liberal foreign-policy types, such as Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, insist the administration is sincere but too focused on elections without supporting the civil-society institutions that sustain democracy. Still others, like Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, contend that a focus on democracy in the developing world without privileging the protection of civil and political rights is a recipe for a dangerous illiberalism.

What's typically neglected in these arguments is the simple insight that democracy does not fill stomachs, alleviate malaria, or protect neighborhoods from marauding bands of militiamen. Democracy, in other words, is valuable to people insofar as it allows them first to meet their basic needs. It is much harder to provide that sense of dignity than to hold an election in Baghdad or Gaza and declare oneself shocked when illiberal forces triumph. "Look at why the baddies win these elections," Power says. "It's because [populations are] living in climates of fear." U.S. policy, she continues, should be "about meeting people where they're at. Their fears of going hungry, or of the thug on the street. That's the swamp that needs draining. If we're to compete with extremism, we have to be able to provide these things that we're not [providing]."

This is why, Obama's advisers argue, national security depends in large part on dignity promotion. Without it, the U.S. will never be able to destroy al-Qaeda. Extremists will forever be able to demagogue conditions of misery, making continued U.S. involvement in asymmetric warfare an increasingly counterproductive exercise - because killing one terrorist creates five more in his place. "It's about attacking pools of potential terrorism around the globe," Gration says. "Look at Africa, with 900 million people, half of whom are under 18. I'm concerned that unless you start creating jobs and livelihoods we will have real big problems on our hands in ten to fifteen years."

Obama sees this as more than a global charity program; it is the anvil against which he can bring down the hammer on al-Qaeda. "He took many of the [counterinsurgency] principles - the paradoxes, like how sometimes you're less secure the more force is used - and looked at it from a more strategic perspective," Sewall says. "His policies deal with root causes but do not misconstrue root causes as a simple fix. He recognizes that you need to pursue a parallel anti-terrorism [course] in its traditional form along with this transformed approach to foreign policy." Not for nothing has Obama received private advice or public support from experts like former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism advisers Richard Clarke and Rand Beers, and John Brennan, the first chief of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The Obama foreign-affairs brain trust balks at the suggestion that what it's proposing is radical. "He said we'd take out al-Qaeda's senior leadership in the Pakistani tribal areas if Pakistan will not. That's not, to me, a revolutionary policy," Rhodes says. "Watching him get attacked on the right is absurd. You've got guys who argued for a massive invasion and occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 criticizing him for advocating the use of highly targeted force to kill Osama bin Laden!"

Rhodes is referring, of course, to John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who recently asked of Obama, "Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?" It's no secret that McCain, a war hero who is to the right of Bush when it comes to Iraq, hopes to make this a foreign-policy election. Conventional wisdom holds this would give him an advantage over Obama. A Feb. 28 Pew Research Center poll found 43 percent of respondents believe Obama is "not tough enough" on foreign policy. Thirty-nine percent believe Obama's foreign policy is "just right," while 47 percent say the same of McCain.

Even so, Obama's foreign-policy advisers are thrilled at the prospect of facing McCain. Had the GOP nomination gone to Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, politicians who don't particularly care about foreign policy, an Obama victory would not provide a mandate for the sweeping foreign-affairs overhaul his campaign proposes. November's election could be, for the first time in a very long time, a choice between two radically different visions of U.S. global engagement. "We want to have this debate with John McCain," a close Obama adviser says. "[Obama] will offer this clear contrast."

Susan Rice, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and one of the few foreign-policy-establishment luminaries to sign on with Obama, explains what's at stake: "After eight years of George Bush, when the next president puts his or her hand on the Bible to be sworn in, the U.S. is going to get one brief second look [from the world] about whether the U.S. truly learned to change from its past mistakes, recent and historic, and whether we're again the kind of America people look to lead in a constructive fashion, or whether we're hopeless. In my opinion, they'll look at McCain and decide we're trapped in our old mistakes."

Of course, it remains to be seen how voters might look at an Obama-McCain race. "The important distinction will be, does Obama come across as saying he wants to make a break with the foreign policy of the last seven years, or does it sound like he'll take foreign policy in a fundamentally different direction than that of the last twenty, thirty, fifty years?" says Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster with Peter D. Hart Associates. Americans are eager to put the Bush doctrine behind them, Molyneux says, but there's a danger that voters will see Obama as a "young guy who's less experienced but sounds like he's taking off in a new direction."




In his focus on the importance of dignity in our policy toward the developing world, Obama sounds quite a bit like John F. Kennedy, who knitted together an argument for engagement with the "non-aligned" world and began the tradition of development assistance as a foreign-policy goal. However, Kennedy's basic foreign policy continued along the Cold War lines that had been laid down during the Truman administration.

Democratic presidential candidates since Kennedy have either downplayed foreign policy or simply argued for more competence in its execution, with two major exceptions: George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. In the popular imagination, based on the "Come home, America" line from his nomination acceptance speech, McGovern pivoted from a striking critique of the immorality of the Vietnam War to an indictment of U.S. involvement abroad. But McGovern purposefully left this broad criticism out of most of his campaign. "I concentrated on Vietnam," McGovern says in a phone interview, "because I thought it would be difficult to sell a comprehensive rewriting of American foreign policy." Carter is a more ambiguous case. In the wake of Watergate, he made a full-spectrum argument against the Washington establishment. Rethinking foreign policy was a part of that, and his aide Hamilton Jordan remarked, "If, after the inauguration, you find Cy Vance as secretary of state and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of national security, then I would say we failed." Both men, of course, received precisely those posts.

Obama is doing something braver with foreign policy than McGovern or Carter. Much, of course, could go wrong. Right-wing demagogues are already implying Obama is a Muslim terrorist. Conservatives are using Obama's argument about the inextricability of international prosperity and U.S. national security to portray him as a "post-American globalist." Jewish right-wingers in the U.S. have begun a smear campaign not just about Obama, but also about Power, as writers for Commentary and National Review have baselessly implied that she is an anti-Semite. Expect more of this for the duration of the primary season, and, if Obama wins, beyond.

If he wins in the general election, he will face a crush of foreign-policy problems so enormous that they risk overwhelming even the most competent, experienced national-security team. Iraq is, of course, a nightmare, and al-Qaeda is not just sitting still in its Pakistani safe haven. To propose rebooting U.S. foreign policy now is, to say the least, ambitious. Many military leaders consider Obama an unknown quantity. At a recent talk, Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks said that officers and soldiers serving in Iraq thought that McCain and Clinton would both pursue a foreign-policy commensurate with Bush's, but Obama left them puzzled. Once in office, Obama might feel compelled to turn his back on the critique he makes on the trail.

But while the doubts about Obama contain fair points, they also, to a certain degree, reflect a triumph of the Iraq War mind-set. Why not demand the destruction of al-Qaeda? Why not pursue the enlightened global leadership promised by liberal internationalism? Why not abandon fear? What is it we have to fear, exactly?

"He goes back to Roosevelt," Power says. "Freedom from fear and freedom from want. What if we actually offered that? What if we delivered that in the developing world? That would be a transformative agenda for us." The end of the Iraq War mind-set, it turns out, may be the beginning of America's reacquaintance with its best traditions.

from here

Sea tea parties back in NEw-York

Book tickets on Seatea

are you into long hair?

do gay men love or hate long hair?

It seems it is not an important criteria for searching for Mister Right...
Here are some interesting testimonials:

"I have long hair. I love my hair. I like guys with long hair. What is the issue with gay guys and long hair? Should I cut mine to fit in?"

"Yes, you should change whatever you have to about yourself in order to 'fit in' because 'fitting in' is SO important. Not."

"long hair is fine I guess"

"That is a personal opinion. Some like it. Some don't."
"Generally, I am not attracted to men with long hair, especially mullets, or the messy look the teenagers are going with now. Clean, straight long hair kept in a pony tail can be somewhat sexy on a guy, but only if he also has a rockin' body too."

"If it was trend to sew your eyes should would you follow that simply to fit in?"

"Some gay men like long hair and there are gay men that like it short. Everyone has their own preference. Do what makes yu feel comortable with yourself."


"My hair is about shoulder length right now, all brownish and a bit wavey. I've never had an issue with any guy because of my hair length. If anything my experience has been just the opposite."

"Be yourself and don't worry about fitting in and you will find someone who loves you because your you."

long hair forbiddden for sportsmen?

Troy Polamalu might not have to worry about getting tackled again by his hair.

At their meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., next week, NFL owners will consider a proposal to ban players from having hair flow from their helmets below their names on the back of their jerseys.

That might affect Polamalu’s image, but help him on the field. Two seasons ago, the Pittsburgh safety with the long ponytail had his hair grabbed by Kansas City’s Larry Johnson and was thrown to the turf after an interception against the Chiefs.

The rule banning long hair on the field was proposed by Kansas City. It does not require players to get haircuts, but does “require them to tuck it up inside their helmets,” said Atlanta president Rich McKay, chairman of the league’s competition committee.

Polamalu is the best known of the players, most of them defensive backs, with hair flowing outside their helmets. Others include cornerbacks Al Harris of Green Bay and Mike McKenzie of New Orleans.

Because the rule was proposed by a team, the competition committee did not take a position on it. It will be discussed Monday with a package of other rules


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Troy Aumua Polamalu (pronounced /Pull-a-MAUL-u/) (born Troy Benjamin Aumua on April 19, 1981 in Garden Grove, California) is an American football safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. He was originally drafted by the Steelers 16th overall in the 2003 NFL Draft. He played college football at Southern California.

national black gay conference

Hundreds of LGBT African Americans will meet in Baltimore next month in the first ever conference aimed at empowerment.

The three-day conference is being organized by the National Black Justice Coalition - the nation's largest Black LGBT rights group.

Called the Power of Us Conference, it will bring together 50 national experts in 35 workshops, panel discussions, and question and answer sessions.

"[It] is a powerful statement for a community that is rarely portrayed in media and entertainment," the National Black Justice Coalition said in a statement Monday.

The conference will showcase an array of highly successful men, women and youth who are making a difference in their community as Black openly LGBT.

Among those scheduled to participate are newly out Connecticut State Legislator Jason Bartlett; Judge Darrin Gayles; Newark, NJ City Council Member Dana Rone; Wilton Manors, FL City Commissioner Joe Angelo; Kathy Harris and Ray Cunningham of BET's College Hill; and Comic Karen Williams.

The conference will be divided into three main areas - Black wellness including HIV/AIDS, the Black Church and homophobia, and Black LGBT Politics including the 2008 Presidential Race and Marriage Equality.

NBJC said that tickets are still available through its Web site.

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overalls day

does an overall excite you as it does for me?

the uncensored story disclosing the package inside the overalls on restoring sex blog